


(Home is) where the heart is

by Starrie_Wolf



Series: Fic Exchanges [Starrie Wolf] [18]
Category: Hot Fuzz (2007)
Genre: Christmas, Epic Bromance, Families of Choice, Future Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-28
Updated: 2015-11-28
Packaged: 2018-05-03 22:07:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5308784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starrie_Wolf/pseuds/Starrie_Wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somehow, they’d managed to settle into a routine after that. And it shouldn't be so easy, but it <i>is</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(Home is) where the heart is

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mxa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mxa/gifts).



Christmas was just around the corner, and the festive spirit had already permeated the entire town. With the days getting shorter and colder – the sun was setting before afternoon tea nowadays – it seemed like even the rowdier of Sandford’s residents were going into hibernation.

Too dark to really appreciate the results of their handiwork, explained one of the kids, who had both refused to be named and demanded Nick promise ahead of time that nothing he said constituted as a confession of any kind. Clearly Danny wasn’t the only cop show aficionado in the town.

It was such a far cry from London – where the cold and the dark seemed to bring out the entire criminal underworld in full force – that Nick was torn between habitually increasing patrols and joining the rest of the station in their torpor.

“Right, I suppose that’s it for the day,” he finally had to concede after three hours without a single call coming into the station, and as though roused by a magical word the station came alive in an instant, everyone bustling to put away their gear. “Sergeant Turner, I’ll be home if anyone needs me.”

Nick paused, the words running through his mind like a loop replaying on infinite, and it was like the Earth had suddenly tilted on its axis beneath his feet.

When had he started thinking of Sandford as _home_?

“Sure,” Turner agreed, completely oblivious to the world-shattering realisation racing through Nick’s thoughts. “We still up for footie on Sunday, yeah?”

Nick had probably made some non-committal noise of agreement, though it was drowned out by the buzz of white noise in his head. He’d spent more than half his life in the bustling city of London, and what seemed like the other half camped out under the hot Afghanistan sun, always shuffling from place to place, to the point he could pack a bag and be ready to go in fifteen minutes.

Home. What a foreign concept.

But not necessarily an unwelcome one.

* * *

 

His flat in London had been sparsely decorated, containing barely more than the essentials he’d been provided with – a comfortable bed, a squashy couch he could sink onto when dragging himself to the bedroom was an exhausting chore he didn’t want to contemplate, a fridge big enough for a week’s worth of beers and microwaveable dinners, a shower that produced hot water on demand. It was just big enough for one – no thanks to the utterly ridiculous price of housing in London – and Nick had liked it that way.

Had thought he liked it that way.

His house in Sandford was possibly everything that the cramped London flat wasn’t – for one, it had two storeys, and a porch, and a little garden overflowing with weeds that Nick had been meaning to do something about but never managed to get around to. Maybe he’d pay a couple of the school kids to weed his garden. Keep them out of trouble without resorting to drastic measures like _killing them all_ , for fuck’s sake.

Despite the sheer size of the house – it would probably have fit his previous flat three times over, at least – Nick had never felt less alone. Part of it, he suspected, was because he was quite literally rarely _alone_ in it.

He absently side-stepped the stack of DVDs overflowing from the coffee table onto the floor, featuring what seemed like every single cop show that had ever aired, and upended the rest of the crisps from the opened pack into his mouth. It was Danny’s fault for leaving them on his table, and there wasn’t much left anyway. The empty bag crinkled as it landed in the trash, atop a litter of Cornetto wrappers.

There were two cups lined up on the shelf above the bathroom sink, each with a toothbrush in it. Nick yawned, eyes almost falling shut, and grabbed the cup on the right by sheer muscle memory alone, brushing his teeth on autopilot.

It had seemed expedient at the time, really, after one too many times Danny had fallen asleep on the couch after a late-night movie marathon, to offer his partner permanent sanctuary. Over the next few weeks, Danny’s things had made a steady migration into Nick’s spare bedroom, while the man himself spent less and less time in his own house, unwilling to stay trapped by four walls soaked in the knowledge of what his father had done, stained with the blood of hundreds of innocents, haunted by the ghosts of the children slaughtered in some kind of twisted revenge plot.

Some time in the last few months, Danny had pretty much moved in, and Nick found that he didn’t mind one bit.

* * *

 

One of the duties that came with being the Police Inspector, Danny had informed him gleefully, was hosting the annual Christmas party for the whole station.

Nick would probably have been _slightly_ less miffed had Danny _not mentioned it barely a week to Christmas_. Where was he supposed to find catering? A turkey big enough to feed everyone? Oh God, was he going to have to _cook_?

Danny just looked at him as though he was crazy. “We just go to – oh,” he muttered, frowning. “Guess a culinary emergency isn’t enough to get someone temporarily released from jail.”

“Probably not,” Nick agreed drily. “Want anything from the shop?”

Stocking up on food fit for a Christmas feast also probably didn’t constitute a police emergency, but Danny was having too much fun with the sirens and Nick didn’t have the heart to stop him.

* * *

 

And then it was Christmas.

Nick poked ruefully at one of the Brussel sprouts on his plate. Maybe he should have put more salt – nah, it still wouldn’t have helped. The sound of laughter made him look up, look at the people crammed around his dining room table, golden light spilling over heads plates chairs, casting a warm glow over the festivities.

He looked back down, just in time to catch Danny discreetly tipping the rest of his own Brussel sprouts onto Nick’s plate.

“Nobody eats these things!”

Very pointedly, Nick speared one of the Brussel sprouts, put it in his mouth, deliberately chewed and swallowed.

Danny deflated. “Fine,” he muttered as he took them back.

Someone had brought a gigantic tray – as in, _Lurch-sized_ tray – of what Nick had originally assumed to be gingerbread men, but a closer inspection revealed that each of them had some kind of circle stuck to the top of their heads, and they didn’t smell like the crisp tang of ginger.

“They’re buttermen angels!” declared Doris. “Like, you know, butterbread men, but with halos?”

Nick blinked at her for a moment, and then joined the rest of the officers in loud raucous laughter.

Seemingly oblivious to the fact that it might be considered cannibalism, Danny picked one of them up and bit off the head. “Tastes pretty good,” he mumbled around a mouthful, which set everyone off again.

“If I wake up in the middle of the night to find you gnawing on my leg, I will shoot you,” Nick informed him tartly, to fresh peals of laughter.

There was a minor incident involving the Christmas pudding that nearly required the services of the fire department – not that anyone would be on duty on Christmas – but was (mostly) peacefully resolved by Nick throwing his jacket over the pudding to smother the flames.

“Who,” he groaned, holding up the empty bottle of scotch as evidence, “upended the _entire bottle_ onto the pudding?”

There was a pause as everyone looked at each other, but no one was eager to confess.

“You’re supposed to light it up, yeah?” Danny finally broke the silence, looking guileless.

Nick gave in to the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Yes, but you don’t pour the _whole_ bottle. There are scorch marks _on the ceiling_.”

They all looked up at the ceiling, which was indeed pock-marked with sooty smudges.

“Sorry Inspector,” Fisher said quietly.

Nick just shook his head.

They eventually migrated to the reception, all eight of them crammed in front of the television, a giant pitcher of eggnog sitting on the coffee table, and there was a bottle of Nick’s favourite beer in his hands without him ever getting up to retrieve it.

A glint of light caught Nick’s eye, and he turned to see the framed photo of the whole station holding court on the mantelpiece, a picture snapped by one of the kids on her camera phone. They were all in their uniforms, Fisher and Doris laughing at something she had said, Danny’s arm thrown companionably over Nick’s shoulders, the new Sergeant badge winking proudly on his uniform.

He could deal with that.

Nick leaned over and stole a crisp from Danny’s open pack.

**Author's Note:**

> [I have a Tumblr if you're interested!](starriewolf.tumblr.com)


End file.
